Children visit seniors as 'random act of kindness'

Dorothy Jarvis (left), a resident at the Trinity Place seniors home in Yarmouth, receives a plant from South Centennial student Megan Purdy as Alden Fells provides music Friday morning, Feb. 28. Two-dozen students from South Centennial visited the seniors and presented them with plants and cards through a project called Random Acts of Kindness, an initiative organized locally by Brandy Jarvis-Nickerson and Audrey Sears. They arranged the visit as part of a project they’re doing through Cape Breton University. Jarvis-Nickerson and Sears are taking the university’s community studies program online. They invited Fells to Trinity Place to provide some musical entertainment during the children’s visit.

It doesn’t take much to make someone’s day, says Brandy Jarvis-Nickerson, one of the organizers of a Random Acts of Kindness event in which a group of students from South Centennial School visited the Trinity Place seniors home to present residents there with plants and cards.

Jarvis-Nickerson and Audrey Sears arranged the visit as part of a project they’re doing through the community studies program they’re taking online from Cape Breton University.

Two-dozen students from grades 5 and 6 visited Trinity Place the morning of Feb. 28.

The plants they brought with them symbolized “planting the seeds of kindness,” Jarvis-Nickerson said.

“It starts with us as individuals,” she said.

The students’ visit included music, thanks to Alden Fells, who played guitar and sang some songs.

“We invited him, told him what was going on and asked if he’d be willing to come down and volunteer some time,” Jarvis-Nickerson said. “He said absolutely, he would love to.”

The event was to have been held the previous week – Random Acts of Kindness Week – but it had been pushed back because of bad weather.

Jarvis-Nickerson spoke about their decision to visit a seniors facility.

“We chose seniors because a lot of the time seniors go unrecognized or they feel lonely and that sort of thing,” she said, “so we thought we would bring the children down from South Centennial.”

The children seemed to enjoy it, she said.

Many of them said they didn’t know any seniors, she said, although this wasn’t the point of the exercise. Rather, she said, the idea was to show that there are many ways to be kind to someone – ways that don’t take much time – and that you don’t have to know somebody to be kind to them.

“It’s just a simple wave, holding a door open, a smile,” she said. “You can make somebody’s day just by doing those simple gestures.”

Dorothy Jarvis (left), a resident at the Trinity Place seniors home in Yarmouth, receives a plant from South Centennial student Megan Purdy as Alden Fells provides music Friday morning, Feb. 28. Two-dozen students from South Centennial visited the seniors and presented them with plants and cards through a project called Random Acts of Kindness, an initiative organized locally by Brandy Jarvis-Nickerson and Audrey Sears. They arranged the visit as part of a project they’re doing through Cape Breton University. Jarvis-Nickerson and Sears are taking the university’s community studies program online. They invited Fells to Trinity Place to provide some musical entertainment during the children’s visit.